I received my shipment from Mountain Rose Herbs at the beginning of this week and boy was I excited...
This is what I got...
Emulsifying Wax - Used in lotions and creams to bind oil and water together. I haven't gotten to use it just yet but I plan to. I am assuming that you use it similar to how you use beeswax, which is used 1 oz for every cup of oil, but I am not sure yet. The kind from MRH is vegetable based and as natural as it can get, I mean since it is processed quite a bit they can't tout it as natural but they can sure try, haha. This is a 1 pound bag.
Beeswax Pastilles (Pellets) - Beeswax is good in lotions, creams, salves, lip balms (basically a hard salve) ...it can be used as an emulsifier or a thickener when used correctly. too much and your preparation would be too hard and not enough and well, it doesnt (seem to) do anything. This is one pound of pastilles. By the way, the beeswax on the site is way cheaper than a lot of places. Michaels (the craft store I went to previously) wants almost 17 dollars for a pound block of beeswax..at mountain rose they only want around 10 or 11 dollars.
Castille Soap - Castille soap is a good type of soap for just about anything...any home made recipe that needs soap of some kind uses castille, so I figured I would try it. It can also be used on its own as a hand soap, face soap, body soap, also a soap for home cleaning. It doesn't quite lather too well but lather doesn't mean clean at all, usually the sulfates used to cause the lather in commercial products are just a placebo and have no actual use in the product except to make us feel like it's working. I had never used castille soap before this, by the way. I haven't really used any of this stuff before.
Sweet Almond Oil - I chose this oil because of its supposed light and non greasy feel that is perfect for lotions.
Later on I was at Wal Mart and found a bottle of Grapeseed oil so I picked it up also. Grapeseed oil is awesome for your skin, I was actually surprised that a department store had it. I will show you what I did with these two oils a little later. The container is 16 oz.
Shea Butter - Funny story about shea butter actually, there was a point that I thought I was allergic to it. Back when that Olay cream ribbons body wash came out my mom got the shea butter kind, and when I used it I got rashes really bad. After that I was too afraid to use anything with shea butter in it. Recently I realized that my favorite chapstick has that evil stuff in it and I had never had a problem with it, nor anything else that had sneaky shea butter in it, so I figured, well I guess I'm okay. Shea butter is so good for your skin and it isn't as thick as cocoa butter so it can be used to make creamy consistancies according to what I have read. I will tell you about my experiences with it so far a little later. That tiny little jar is 4 oz.
Dried Calendula Petals - Calendula is touted to be really good for your skin. Before this venture I had never heard of it before but so many herbal videos and sites and tutorials say it's a good herb for oil infusions since it decreases redness, helps with burns, disinfecting wounds, ect. I had never smelled it before so when I opened the bag I didn't know what I was expecting. It wafted out and it smelled of warm honey. Now, some people like the smell of honey, but it isn't my favorite. Kind of comes on strong but if you step away it isn't so bad. I started my infused oil with the sweet almond the day I got this ( last monday), more on that later. The bag pictured above is merely 4 ounces, the smallest bag you can get at MRH, and the bag beside it is 8 oz of lavender, for comparison. I didn't use much for my first infusion so if you plan on buying some, don't fret, 4 oz is plenty. Random fact: Calendula was used back in olden times to dye cheese and butter,
Dried Lavender Petals - I got 8 oz of dried lavender for some reason. I have to say it's enough to pamper a small army. I probably should have got 4, but it seems like Mountain Rose's prices aren't that much different for smaller or bigger sized things, I guess to get you to buy the bigger one, but I guess that's alright. Lavender is one of my favorite scents so I figured I would find a way to use it all. I even made an infusion just now because I read a lavender tea is good for nausea. It kind of chilled me out surprisingly and my nausea stopped. You just take a few teaspoons of the herb, boil about a cup of water and dump it over the herb and let it steep for about 12 minutes. The taste, is kind of to be desired, even with honey, but, it smells pretty good. You should probably drink it fast.I also put some lavender into grapeseed oil for an oil infusion...but more on that later as well. The petals were surprisingly fragrant. I've seen dried lavender at stores before that didn't smell quite so strong, so I suppose the supplier is pretty swell.
I got some essential oil as well to play with...
I don't know how well you can read that but I got Eucalyptus, Geranium, Lavender, Peppermint, Rosemary and Tea Tree.
I had never played with essential oils before but I have to mention that they do not smell the same as things scented the same way that you can buy. These oils are purely extracted from the plants with no extra fluff. They are also not the same as fragrance oils. Most of these have kind of a warm smell..The lavender and peppermint are absolutely awesome together. Eucalyptus and Tea tree, not surprisingly, have a much sharper and cleaner scent.
Eucalyptus is a great disinfectant. Used in a diffuser supposedly has the ability to disinfect a room. It has other uses as well that can be found all over the internet, so I won't bore you with it here.
Geranium can be used as an insect repellent and also for various uses on skin..
Lavender is a disinfectant, and also great for stress relief and sleep issues. Lavender can be used directly on skin when other essential oils cannot be used that way.
Peppermint is, well peppermint.
Rosemary is good for dandruff and oily skin! But you can NOT eat it in food like you can dried rosemary leaves. You can't ingest any kind of essential oil unless otherwise noted on the bottle by the manufacturer..I am not sure why but I assume it's because of what it was extracted with, I suppose.
Tea Tree is also good for oily skin and dandruff but it's also excellent as a disinfectant around the house.
You can pretty much find information on all this stuff in a million places online which is why I didn't go through much detail.
The rest of that stuff pictured..the bottles, the white jars, the chapstick containers and the tins are all empty containers I bought for experimenting. Now that I have started experimenting, i wish i would have bought empty plastic bottles instead of jars, but oh well I will know for next time. Buy these things online because they are ridiculously priced in stores.
Well, that's all I've got for this post. Later I will talk about what I have done so far in the last week or so, I figured it would be better to split it up!
Also no worries, I will post when I make that bath salt for those cute baby food containers also :)
On a separate note, the summer solstice just passed. This holiday is revered by pagans everywhere mostly known as Litha or Midsummer and is usually celebrated by dancing around bonfires and staying up all night. Alas I did not get to properly celebrate it ( I can't pull all nighters anymore haha), but this is a good time of the year to re-dedicate yourself to your faiths so that is what I decided to do. You should think about where you stand with your faith and if you feel like you have strayed from it, renew yourself! You'll feel better and less depressed. Or, if you don't have a faith, that's cool. Either way.
Anyhow hope this one wasnt too bad... Hoping to do my next one this comming week. I have already made a few things. I started two oil infusions, calendula in sweet almond oil and lavender in grape seed oil, I've made a body wash and a shea butter body cream. That will be next time :) see you later! )O(
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